People think I'm crazy when I say this, but I LOVE query letters. I love writing them, I love editing them, I love reading them. When I worked for a publisher, reading queries was my favorite part! With #pitchwars coming up and the workshop on query writing I just taught at my local library, I've … Continue reading 10 Tips for an Outstanding Query

My day job is to plan events, mainly author events. I have emailed my manager the words "I just can't." twice today. Because I have spent the entire day dealing with authors who don't have the most basic materials they should have in order to promote their book, I thought I'd develop a short list … Continue reading Published Authors: Your Basic Media Kit

At the dayjob, I work with a lot of authors and frequently ask for headshots to use in our marketing of their events. You would be floored by how many people send me shots like these: click to see what's really wrong with this one. (Note: These are all altered stock photo images, not actual … Continue reading Faking a Professional Author Photo

There is one thing writers at any point in their career need to have prepared: an elevator pitch. The last time I asked an author "what's your book about?" I got a fifteen minute rambling monologue. I know a lot about the guy's son (?) but still have no idea what his book is about. … Continue reading Ten Tips for Your Elevator Pitch

I wrote this book. Let's call it MF. I thought it was fantastic, unique, clever, wonderful, etc. It was going to be a great hit and sell movies because it was so awesome. It was the second book I ever wrote (the first is this glorious kind of mess that I do intend on resurrecting … Continue reading Hard Truth Time: Not Every Book Deserves to be Published

I've been getting a lot of word count questions from Pitch Wars hopefuls, so I though I'd write everything out in a post for ease and convenience. These ranges are generalizations and there are always outliers. If you have a book that is a little bit outside these ranges, it's an extra hurdle and your … Continue reading Word Counts for Children, MG, YA, and Adult books, by genre

Rae Chang and I were just chatting on twitter about what phrases in queries are giant red flags for us. Some of these may seem obvious, but I guarantee anyone who has read slush has seen them more than a few times. If you find yourself writing any of these phrases into your query, it may be a … Continue reading 15 things to leave out of your query